Abuse of Discretion

by Pamela Samuels Young

  “Why you always hangin’ out with this chomo?”

  My cellie says nothing. I don’t have to see his face to know that he’s so petrified his lips won’t work.

  “I’m talkin’ to you,” Oaktown repeats.

  “I-I…this is my cell. I’m just in my cell.”

  “Why you always playin’ chess with him?”

  Wallstreet is too terrified to answer, so Oaktown raises his gaze to me.

  “Anybody who sells little girls is a pervert and I don’t like perverts. Especially a pervert who turned out my homeboy’s little girl.”

  “Man, you got your facts wrong,” I say. “I’m out of the trafficking business. And I don’t know nothing about Blaze’s daughter.”

  “Don’t lie to me. The way I hear it, you still goin’ long and strong in the pimpin’ game. I heard you pimpin’ little girls down south now.”

  “Uh, I-I gotta go.” Wallstreet eases his way around Oaktown and disappears through the door.

  I need to talk to this thug on his level, which means I can’t show any sign of fear.

  “You’ve received some incorrect information. And I don’t appreciate you disrespecting me by coming into my cell like this.”

  Oaktown crosses his massive arms. “You made the mistake of snatchin’ the wrong little girl. Blaze’s kid didn’t start hittin’ the needle until after you put her on the street. Blaze is holdin’ you responsible for her death. He asked me to kill you. The only reason you’re still breathin’ is cuz I haven’t decided yet how I’m gonna do it.”

  This is a place for non-violent offenders. How did this psychopath get in here?

  “I hear you got lots of dough. I’ma need a few stamps and I also want you to get some of your peeps to put some money on my books.”

  If I have to pay this guy to leave me alone, so be it.

  “I might be able to do that,” I say, forcing fearlessness into my voice, “but I can’t have you threatening me all the time. You show me some respect and I’ll do the same to you.”

  Oaktown responds with a deep guttural laugh.

  “Oh, so you wanna be the tough man, huh? I bet you wasn’t tough when you was snatchin’ little girls off the street and selling ’em like crack. You a pervert.”

  “You have your business and I have mine. Anyway, I don’t do that anymore.”

  “I told you not to lie to me!” His saliva peppers my face.

  Oaktown leans in so close I can see the red veins in his yellow eyes. Even though I’m sitting on the top bunk, we’re almost eye-to-eye. I want to climb down, but I don’t know that my legs will hold me up.

  “Put three hundred dollars on my books. I hear you got a phone, so I’ll give you a couple of hours to get it done.” He stretches out his hand. “Ten books of stamps should hold me for now.”

  I don’t have a choice. I jump down from my bunk and retrieve the stamps from my hiding place. When I hand them to him, he stands there and recounts them, even though he just saw me do that.

  He turns away as if he’s leaving, then swings back around and punches me in the side with the whole force of his body. I’m sure I hear my ribs crack.

  I cry out and reach for the bed to keep from falling to the floor.

  “Catch you later, pervert.” He slips back out of the door.

  Wallstreet must’ve been waiting for Oaktown to leave because he returns only seconds later.

  “You okay?” He helps me sit on his bed.

  “Thanks for having my back.” I’m still doubled over in pain.

  “I-I told you, I don’t do violence. That maniac is going around telling everybody you’re a chomo. If I defend you, he’ll turn on me.”

  Oaktown is a problem that’s only going to get worse. Paying him off will likely increase his threats. Would he really kill me? No, that wouldn’t make sense. I’m much more valuable to him alive. But I can’t sit around being his punching bag and personal ATM. I have to find a way to make this problem go away.

  “I need you to help me find somebody who can get Oaktown off my ass. I can pay them.”

  Wallstreet starts waving his hands in the air like a referee calling a foul. “I told you, I can’t get involved. And everybody’s scared of him. The guy’s nuts. You should report him and ask the guards to put you in protective custody.”

  “Then I’ll be labeled a snitch and locked up with the gays and chomos. I’d rather go to the hole.”

  Almost any infraction can get you put in the hole, which means twenty-three hours a day of solitary confinement. No human contact other than a guard, no books or magazines, and only three showers a week. Your food is slid through a slot in the door. No one asks to go there.

  But an idea comes to me. The hole may well serve two purposes—getting me some relief from Oaktown’s harassment and restoring my rep.

  CHAPTER 49

  Mei

  My friends are always telling me I should be glad that I look half my age. Maybe I’ll be grateful when I’m fifty, but right now, it’s mostly annoying. Except when I’m trying to pass myself off as a middle-school student.

  I knock on Crayvon Little’s front door and wait for the response I’ve heard a million times.

  Mrs. Little opens the door, looks me up and down and says, “You’re the investigator? You don’t even look old enough to drive.”

  I flash a smile that hides my irritation. “I assure you I am.” I shake her hand and step into her living room.

  Sharon Little is a thin, fair-skinned woman who wears her hair short and her attitude strong. She has the sturdy stance of a woman you don’t mess with, despite her lithe frame.

  “Crayvon’s back there on that dang computer. My son lives on that thing. I couldn’t pay him to go outside and play in the yard. It’s such a shame.”

  Since deciding to focus my investigative talents on juvenile cases, I’ve become a bit of a technology whiz. Social media plays some role in nearly all of my cases. Kids often convict themselves with their own posts. If parents took half a second to monitor what their kids are doing online, my business would be cut in half.

  Mrs. Little yells down the hall and a tall, waif-like kid bounces into the room dressed in jeans and an oversized Stephen Curry jersey.

  “This is Ms. Lau, Graylin’s investigator. She wants to see if you know anything that can help Graylin’s case.”

  She takes a seat on the living room couch. Crayvon sits next to her, while I settle into a cushy arm chair.

  “It’s a shame what they’re doing to that boy. Ruining his life for nothing. I don’t believe for a minute that Graylin took a picture of that girl through her bedroom window. That boy is an angel. I heard that girl’s mama is trying to throw the book at him. She better be careful because what goes around always comes right back to you. Go get Ms. Lau a bottle of water,” she tells her son.

  “Do you know Mrs. Carlyle?” I ask.

  “Just in passing. The Carlyles have lived on this street for at least five years, but she barely waves and never participates in any of our block parties.”

  “Which house is it?” I ask, although I already know.

  She steps over to the picture window. It’s the beige house with the white trim four houses down on the opposite side of the street. I’m pretty sure the Carlyles are recently separated.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. I never see him come home in the evenings anymore. His black BMW used to be parked in the driveway every night, but I haven’t seen it in weeks.”

  I nod, happy to let Mrs. Little keep blabbing away.

  “Simone—that’s the wife—thinks she’s all that because she’s a vice president at some company. Raised her daughter to think that too. That’s why her husband ran off. She’s always traveling. Never home. Got some African nanny raising that child. That’s the problem.”

 
“Have you had much contact with Kennedy?”

  “Not really. She keeps that child protected, too protected. Anyway, you’re not here to talk to me.”

  Mrs. Little suggests that we move into the dining room. I don’t object even though I prefer the more relaxed setting of the living room. A comfortable witness is a more talkative witness. I follow her and take a seat at the dining room table.

  Crayvon hands me a bottle of water and places a coaster on the table. I start by asking him general questions about his classes. He isn’t a shy kid, but he’s not overly forthcoming either.

  “Is everybody at school talking about the picture?”

  “Yep.”

  “Have you seen it?”

  He pauses as his eyes steal a glance at his mother.

  “Go on, boy,” Mrs. Little says. “I know you looked at it just like everybody else.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen it.”

  “Who showed it to you?”

  He pauses again. “Kenya.”

  “What’s Kenya’s last name?”

  “Morris.”

  “Do you know how she got the picture?”

  “From Instagram. But it’s not up there anymore. Kenya saved it on her phone like Graylin did. A lot of people did. But when everybody started talking about Graylin getting arrested, they got scared and deleted it off their phones. Everybody saw it though. It went viral.”

  “Do you know who took the picture?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do you know who posted it on Instagram?”

  “Nope. But I know Graylin didn’t. He wouldn’t do that.”

  “Do you know of anybody who didn’t like Kennedy and might’ve wanted to embarrass her?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do you know of anybody who didn’t like Graylin?”

  “Nope. He’s popular and really smart too. He always helps me with my algebra.”

  “Does Graylin ever come over to your house?”

  “Yep.”

  “What do you guys usually do?”

  He shrugs. “Mostly play Nintendo. Or just hang out.”

  The phone rings and Mrs. Little gets up to answer it.

  “I understand that Kennedy lives across the street. Do you ever go over to her house?”

  Crayvon freezes, then steals a glance down the hallway, where his mother is on the phone. “Um, no.”

  His stricken face sends off a warning signal. He’s lying. If I’m going to get any admissions out of Crayvon, I need to do it before Mrs. Little returns.

  “Have you and Graylin ever gone over to Kennedy’s house when he came over to hang out with you?”

  I include Graylin in my question so Crayvon thinks I’m focusing on Graylin’s conduct, not his.

  “Um,” he tugs at a loose thread on the hem of his T-shirt, “not that I can recall?”

  Not that I can recall? He sounds like a well-coached witness.

  Before coming here, I looked up Kennedy’s house on Google Earth to see if I could figure out where the picture was taken from. Whoever shot it had to be standing outside her bedroom window. I lucked up and found pictures of the interior of the Carlyles’ home on a real estate website. Those pictures and the Google Earth view show that the bedrooms are in the back on the ground floor, which means the shooter had to enter the backyard.

  “Have you and Graylin ever gone into Kennedy’s backyard?”

  Once again, Crayvon’s face flashes panic. “Nope. Never.”

  “So you guys have never looked into Kennedy’s bedroom window before?”

  “Of course not. I wouldn’t do that. Neither would Graylin.”

  Mrs. Little returns just as I’m asking my next question.

  “Do you like Kennedy? I mean, as a friend?”

  “Nope. Nobody likes her. She’s too fake. Thinks she’s all that because her parents buy her anything she wants. She has some Nikes that cost over four hundred dollars. Most girls don’t care about expensive tennis shoes, but she tries to outdo the boys.”

  “She gets that snootiness from her mama,” Mrs. Little chimes in.

  “Does Kennedy have many friends?”

  “Not really. She only hangs out with LaShay Thornton.”

  “Is LaShay in the eighth grade too?”

  Crayvon nods.

  “Where does she live?”

  “In the Jungle with her grandmother. Her mama and daddy are both in the military.”

  “That’s a surprise,” Mrs. Little says. “I’m shocked that Simone lets her daughter hang out with somebody who’s in a lower economic class.”

  “What’s the Jungle?” I ask.

  “It’s a neighborhood with a bunch of apartment buildings,” Crayvon explains. “And they have lots of trees like in a jungle. It’s kinda rough over there.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Not far from here.” Mrs. Little points over her shoulder. “If you’re going north, back down LaBrea, you make a right on Coliseum. If you get to Rodeo, you’ve gone too far.”

  I turn back to Crayvon. “And you’re sure you don’t know who might’ve taken that picture of Kennedy?”

  His eyes dart everywhere except in my direction. “Nope. I have no idea.”

  CHAPTER 50

  Willie

  I don’t realize it until I look over at Bones, but I’ve chosen a complete imbecile to partner with me on this gig. It’s 70 degrees outside and he’s sweating like he just walked out of a sauna. That means he’s scared.

  “Man, you okay?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Let’s do this.”

  Bones is the worst kind of criminal, a dude who wears his bravado like a badge, but is the first one to crap on himself when something goes wrong. I’m going to dump him as soon as this job is done.

  Our rented truck is headed west on Florence Avenue toward Angela Evans’ office. We’re both dressed as handymen in dark-green coveralls with Roscoe’s Electrical Repair stitched on the pockets. We park on the street instead of the building’s parking garage and hop out. I grab a large tool box from the cab of the truck.

  It’s after eight at night, so there shouldn’t be much foot traffic in the building. I look around again for security cameras. If there are any here, somebody did a good job camouflaging them. We’re wearing fake mustaches and baseball caps pulled low over our foreheads just in case. We walk up to the reception desk where a young security guard is busy tapping the screen of his phone. He barely looks up at us.

  I sign in, prepared to give a spiel about the building management calling us to check out the hallway lights on the fourth floor. I’d even practiced it with Bones. But this cat doesn’t care who enters the building. He’s all into his phone.

  “We have to fix the—”

  I kick Bones in the ankle, cutting him off mid-sentence.

  The guy is still glued to his phone. “Yeah, okay.” He never looks up at us.

  Bones hobbles behind me over to the bank of elevators.

  “What you do that for?” He stoops to massage his ankle.

  “Because you opened your big mouth.”

  “I just figured we should tell the guy what we’re doin’ to make it look good.”

  “Did that dude look like he was concerned about us? Keep your fat trap shut. I told you, I’ll do the talking.”

  When the elevator opens, we take it to the fourth floor. After getting off, I look up and down the hallway. No one in sight.

  “Stay here and signal me if anybody comes.”

  I walk the few steps to the door of Angela Evan’s office suite and knock. When no one answers, I stick a long tool into the lock and it easily pops open.

  “Is anyone here?” I call out. “It’s the electricians.”

  I’ve been following Angela nearly every day. Since my first visit to her offi
ce, she hasn’t worked past five, probably on directions from Dre. I still can’t believe he almost busted me. Tonight’s mission is as much for him as it is for his woman.

  I check to make sure nobody’s in the other interior offices, then wave Bones in. “Hurry up.”

  “Which office is it?” Bones asks.

  I ignore his question, walk up to the first door on the right and quickly pop the lock. We step inside and close the door.

  “Let’s get to work,” I say. “Miss Angela Evans is gonna get quite a surprise when she comes to work tomorrow morning.”

  CHAPTER 51

  Dre

  “Aw, Dad, this is whack.”

  My son, Little Dre, is standing in front of me with his lips poked out as I scroll through the text messages on his cell phone. After what Graylin’s going through, it’s time I have a serious talk with my own kid.

  “You can’t be doing anything crazy with this phone. If you do, I’m taking it.” I tell him for the third time what happened to Graylin.

  “A lot of my friends sext, Dad. It’s not a big deal.”

  I can’t believe my ten-year-old just said that. I must be stuck in a time warp.

  “Yes, it is a big deal! And it’s illegal. Did you hear what I said about Graylin? And I don’t care what your friends do. You better not do it. Your ass could end up in jail!”

  “Leave that boy alone,” Sheila calls out from the kitchen. “You’re scaring him.”

  “Nobody’s talking to you. I still say he’s too young to have a cell phone in the first place.”

  A cell phone led to Brianna being kidnapped. If I have anything to say about it, she’ll be thirty before she gets another one.

  “I need to be able to reach him,” Sheila yells back. “And it’s only a TracFone. He can’t even go on the internet.”

  My son’s mother is and always will be the biggest one-night mistake of my life. My son was the only good thing that came out of hooking up with her.

  I grab Little Dre by the arm. “Have you sexted anybody before?”

  “Ow, Dad, you’re hurting me. I haven’t sexted nobody. I promise.”